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(Q) Now that the dust has settled on the recent budget where does it leave real school finances? (A) REDUCED! On the surface there appears to be significant increases to spending on education but this is largely to cover the simple fact there is going to be a large increase in pupil numbers – there… Read more »

Sir Michael Wilshaw (Chief Inspector – Ofsted) has recently been critical of our governing body system within our state schools. He has referred to his inspectors findings in the last year in which five hundred schools were found to have underperforming governing bodies. It appears that many school governors do not have the professional knowledge… Read more »

There can be little doubt that the provision of state education (up to the age of sixteen) has been enhanced and improved, for the majority of children, over the past seventy years. The basic standard of education experienced by our children has improved beyond recognition. This is evidenced by the improvement in performance and achievement of… Read more »

Over the past thirty years the general standards of classroom behaviour has probably actually improved across the country despite press claims to the contrary. This has been particularly noticeable in many inner city areas and teachers should take a great deal of pride in this. However there are still of course problems and they can… Read more »

On February 6th 2015 the government published it’s response to the ‘Workload Challenge’ and in it pledged to reduce teacher workload via a number of proposals including: Giving schools more notice of significant changes to the curriculum, exams and accountability, and not making changes to qualifications in the academic year or during a course, unless… Read more »

A recruitment and retention crisis is looming across the country with many areas already struggling to attract suitably qualified teachers. The secondary sector appears to be the worst effected with maths and physics teachers (as usual) being in short supply. According to Department for Education figures nearly 50,000 teachers left the profession in the year… Read more »